The Table At Aspen

We've been taping The Table here at Aspen, with distinguished guests taking part as well as the usual Atlantic crew. Here are the first two segments of a conversation with C. Daniel Mote, Paul Verkuil, and Michael Bennet, on the subject: "Is Higher Education For Everyone?"

More to come ...

Comments

Up next...the presidents of McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's debate on the crucial question "Are hamburgers for everyone?"

Seriously, this was useless. I want that 8 minutes of my life back. A bunch of platitudes, no real expertise.

Posted by ed | July 3, 2008 12:03 PM

"Is higher education for everyone." ... ? (it may be over-rated)

Posted by berger | July 3, 2008 12:13 PM

I really enjoyed this discussion, particularly Michael Bennett's comments. Ed, you may feel it is platitudes but did you actually hear what Bennett said about 9th graders in Denver? that 9% would graduate from a 4 year college? the statistics about black and latino 10th graders being proficient on what would be junior high math tests in Europe? Do you think that this is not a problem for the future of this country? how we contintue to fall in the world rankings? we will be able to be competitive in the future? It all starts with education and competence. They made not have had answers but they showed us the issues. This is an ideas festival, try to have one.

Posted by ann | July 3, 2008 1:09 PM

No real expertise? Who would you rather have debating the issues of higher education than people working in secondary and higher education? The issues presented were real and the statistics Bennett claimed are scary. I do wish more time was devoted to solutions to the problem, but as ann said, it's an ideas festival; a forum for conversation.

Posted by Devin | July 3, 2008 3:19 PM

I'm just grateful there was no Steve Sailer cameo where he explained how lack kids should all be sent to cement-mixing or crop-picking school. The way this blog has been, uh, raising Sailer's white sheets lately it wouldn't have been much of a surprise.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 3, 2008 3:35 PM

Uh, that would be "black kids," not "lack kids." I hate when that happens.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 3, 2008 3:55 PM

so 9% of freshman in denver are head to a college degree? sweet. i bet you they spend a crapload of money on education in that city too. like we do federally.

btw that superintendent loves spouting off statistics about how much his system sucks at eductation. why does he have a job?

Posted by mattc | July 3, 2008 6:42 PM

So, MLJ, I'm here for you. Black/white IQ discussions usually get grumpy very quickly, and that's perfectly predictable. I don't think we have to go there to think: half of the students are below average. White/black/yellow - half are below average. There's an old saying, 'never try to teach a pig to sing. You get dirty, and it annoys the pig'. Algebra II and calculus and materials science and research papers are not going to work for dull normal kids. Nor need you understand calculus to be a roofer.
Vast majority of the kids getting out of current USA high schools, it would be cruelty to send them to CalTech. They would fail, not even begin to understand what was going on around them, and bounce out with a huge debt they would never be able to repay.
Chico State, and taking classes in physics appreciation and prenursing - more of the graduating seniors could handle that, and go on to making things work in clinics under supervision. Still probably only the top half, in academic preparaton/skills/cognitive ability.
MLJ, I'm not sure what your starting point is, besides calling everyone else a racist - do you believe in a heritable distribution of cognitive ability, or do you have some notion that all babies come from the manufacturer with natural genius which is somehow stripped away by Steve Sailer and his evil minions? If you do think there's a distribution, it seems to me that you want to sent to CalTech the students for whom it's paradise, and not the ones for whom it's confusing and adds no value. And I think that's what Paul Verkuil was saying, with more emollience than I did.

Posted by dave.s. | July 4, 2008 7:26 AM